


Mother of Mercy, Merciless Wife

by NeoQwerty



Category: Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Dark Almalexia, Dysfunctional Relationships, Elder Scrolls III: Tribunal Spoilers, F/M, Tribunal DLC (Elder Scrolls)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26936341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeoQwerty/pseuds/NeoQwerty
Summary: Almalexia contemplates the Nerevarine who bends to her whims as she sends him on quests so she might be the only God of Morrowind.She gives him a sweet, poisoned hope, a dark blessing, by calling him by his dead self's name.
Relationships: Indoril Almalexia & Nerevarine, Indoril Almalexia/Indoril Nerevar
Kudos: 4





	Mother of Mercy, Merciless Wife

Almalexia finds the Nerevarine a pitiable soul.

With her talent for healing _(never asked for it, never wanted it, used as a grip by her parents to force her into a role she loathed)_ , she can see through the body and into the soul, a guttering flame almost masked by the radiance of worship. She might feel jealous that his divinity is so strong, buried and unknown to him, if she didn't know how to flay through his armor and bare his wounded heart to her cruel talons.

Nerevar is lost, dragging himself on through his sense of duty, a hollow-eyed beggar wrapped in rags and with shards of glass slicing into the soles of his feet. And those rags, stained red and slashed and torn, are what remains of the Nerevarine.

It's hard to sense what he was like, once, but she can feel ambition and desire and pride. She would have loved to see that fire, the same one that Nerevar once had, before years and experience and knives had doused it into the embers of responsibility and stubbornness.

She smiles at him, warm and inviting, Mother Morrowind's smile, and he offers her a ghostlike, wan smile back, though it reaches his eyes. He begins reporting, holding his palm up with the Mazed Band _(Finally! Finally finally finally, she can take care of Seht, get rid of the largest threat to her plan, because Seht would sooner die than allow her to kill that little thief-whore who stole **her** adoration and **her** worship, flaunting that he has enough energy to maintain the damn Ghostfence, hold that rock in the air, and still go around gallivanting far and wide from his seat of worship!)_, and she looks closer at him, at that small light in his eyes.

He still loves her, she realizes with not a small amount of disbelief, and when she takes the ring from his hand, she lets her hand linger, wills her smile softer, her eyelids to lower just slightly, a mask of spousal love. His ears color darker, a duskier shade than the rest of his skin, one of the tells no one had been able to butcher out of him, and he seems riveted, hypnotized by her stare.

"Nerevarine..."

She sees, then, so clearly in curse-red eyes what he _wants_ , and she wonders how he could have managed to make it to being acknowledged as Nerevarine and under Vivec's protection, and yet still have this jagged wound bared to the air. Has Vivec lost his touch, in these last few decades, at reading what others want? Oh, well. She delivers this small mercy onto the Dunmer.

"...My Nerevar, come to me again, at long last." And she doesn't need to be Mother Morrowind here, her voice soft with fondness and her own form of twisted love. She _did_ miss him, a fierce ache she has resented horribly over the years, and she wants to take his hand, lead him further into her temple, and teach him all over again how she can take him apart and smear his pain and pleasure, mix them with her love and hate until he forgets who he is and becomes _hers_.

But to her surprise, his lips quiver, eyes going wide, tears welling in his eyes as if she'd stabbed him in the heart with her words. She's never seen him this honest, and the part of her that is a lie come alive, the part that she detests, the healer who conceals the Boethian warrior inside her, breaks its fabricated heart a little, like a phantom ache that she knows isn't real, but feels as if it is. She slides the band over her little finger, just so she remembers it, and then brushes her thumb over his lower lid, as if to banish unshed tears, and lowers her voice into a hushed murmur.

"I... Was going to offer you a boon, my champion, but... What pains you so?"

She doesn't expect truth. She expects him to compose himself, hide his weakness in shame, as he did when he was Nerevar.

"...You truly think _I'm_ Nerevar..." She recognizes then that his hands are shaking, that beyond the shock and pain, there's desperate hope. She can see now how he _craves_ that confirmation. Shouldn't he have known, by now, that he _is_ Nerevar reborn? She takes a trembling hand into her larger, war-callused one, and leans in, enjoying the way his whole body tenses, wound tighter and tighter and tighter, and she brushes a kiss over his brow, a small wash of magic prickling and settling into his mind. A blessing from a Goddess.

"I do not _think_. I _know_ , as befits a living god. You are my husband, of that, there is no doubt possible. Now go. Rest. I will have another task for you tomorrow, _Nerevar_."

The smile that he gives her is so painfully honest, before he leaves, that the moment he is gone, she gives a charming smile at one of her Hands, and beckons for him to follow her to her bedchambers. She wants to get rid of that feeling prickling into her, that phantom pain for the pale shadow of her warlord and general. _(He's too brittle, now. Breaking him doesn't elevate her anymore, and she hates that she can't bring herself to shatter him and let another poor soul have the burden of carrying him.)_


End file.
